EDITIO PRINCEPS. Volume 1 only. (The remaining 4 volumes were printed between February 1497 and June 1498). Bound in 18th century red morocco, gilt, with paste-paper endpapers. The binding is in excellent condition with minor, expert repairs. A fresh, broad-margined copy with some light foxing and soiling to the title page and last leaf only. The first headpiece and initial were tastefully colored in the 18th century. A few tiny, pin-prick wormholes appear in the margin of the first and final few signatures. Only one of these makes its way through the volume, in the far outer margin, and is hardly noticeable. There are two small paper repairs: on the first leaf, not affecting the text on the recto and just touching the first letter in 3 lines of the Latin epistle on the verso; and on the lower blank margin of the third leaf. There are a few discreet early corrections in the margins of Books I and II of the Topics, as well as some chapter numbering (in Greek) also in the margins of the same two books. Aside from these very minor points, a truly fine copy.

The text is printed using the first two Aldine Greek types (146 and 114 mm.), cut by Francesco Griffo and apparently modeled on the hand of Immanual Rhusotas (see Nicolas Barker, Aldus Manutius, chapters 6 and 7).

The Aldine Aristotle was "the greatest publishing venture of the fifteenth century" and "alone would suffice to establish Aldus' reputation" (Fletcher). The publication marked not only the beginning of Aldus' ambitious plan to publish the Greek authors in their original language but was itself responsible for the success of the printing venture that produced it.

"The fragile undertaking of 1495 was by 1498 a sturdy business which no longer needed or justified the restraint of trade [granted to Aldus by the Venetian Senate in a privilege of 1495], thanks largely to Aldus' own success. That success was founded on the Greek Aristotle. The separate editions issued over the four years 1495-98, each volume bearing an allusion to the privilege granted by the senate, was undoubtedly conceived of as a series, though each was available by itself. Aldus himself distinguished between the volume of logical works (the 'Organon', or 'instrument', so called from a poem prefixed to this edition) that was published in November 1495 and the later volumes of 'philosophy'. This was the real work that the partnership was set up to create. The other Latin and Greek works of the earliest years were for the most part either quickly produced, easily sold educational texts, or in the nature of private press work for members of Aldus' intellectual and academic circle… 'The Aldine Aristotle' remains, in terms of the labour involved and the magnificence of the result, the greatest publishing venture of the fifteenth century. The centrality of Aristotle in intellectual life of the time can hardly be overstressed. In Latin dress he lay at the heart of any university course in philosophy, as dominant at the end of the Quattrocento as in the preceding three hundred years. The humanist return ad fontes, to the original unobscured by imprecise translation and the encrustations of scholastic commentary, was the indispensable background to the edition." (Davies, Aldus Manutius, Printer and Publisher of Renaissance Venice (1999) 20-22.